NOTE: The following story is entirely fictional and bears only loose connections to reality. Enjoy.
Once upon a time, the quaint town of Aix-en-Provence sat quietly and peacefully in the south of France, filled with old ochre buildings and plane trees smiling over its residents. The sun shined on the town's numerous fountains, and most of the excitement in the area came from the Mistral's winds ripping through the streets.
One January day, a wide-eyed and severely jet-lagged me arrived in the city, not yet knowing what the semester was to bring. I spent the next few months wandering around the city, occasionally branching out to other nearby countries, getting to know the cultures and languages as well as I could. I tried local the local cuisine, attempted to function in a foreign university, and spent a lot of time looking words up in my French-English dictionary, until one spring day when I was faced with a dilemma.
With my days in the country winding to a close, I needed to try to fit in as many missed french experiences as possible, and I realized that I had yet to eat some truly french French Fries.
"This is a disaster," I lamented to Nathan in the kitchen as he mixed the batter for some banana pancakes. "How can I hold my head up if I go back to the States without eating the Frenchest Fry? And where am I even going to find it?"
"Well," he replied, "French fries were actually invented by the Belgians. It's only the style of frying them that's French, so the most authentic fries would actually be in Belgium."
With this nugget of information, I knew who could help me best: RyanAir. Their cheap and jenky flights could get me there pretty easily, so I headed straight to their website to look up flights. The only thing that could tear my eyes from the artificial glow of my laptop screen was the presence of an additional voice in the kitchen.
"Ooh, you should throw some of this in there," Hannah commented to Nathan while rooting through the fridge and spice rack. "And is there any Sriracha around?"
"Wait, when did you get in here?" I inquired.
"Oh, you know," she replied, immediately returning her attention to the food. I really didn't know, though. As I looked through my planner for a decent remaining weekend to head to Belgium, Hannah turned her attention to me once more. "What are you up to?" My answer merited no other response than her swift grimace and review of RyanAir landing quality. "Every time they're about to land, everything is going great, then it's like the pilot just gives up and drops the controls a second before touching ground. I feel like I'm gonna die every time."
My mind was suddenly plagued with flashbacks to every RyanAir landing that I've ever experienced, which invariably aligned with her description. This reminder, along with the fact that I didn't have enough free weekends left in Aix, brought me to the more practical decision to simply find french fries in France while I was still there. For the moment, though, my attentions were better devoted to the pancakes in front of me.
After breakfast, the next stop was the Parc Jourdain, a prime people watching spot and a favorite locale for studying and enjoying the sun. Upon reaching my destination, I greeted Savannah and Victoria, and we pulled out our Langage, Culture, et Société notes in preparation for our sun-soaked study session. After a good half hour of productive studying, we digressed by catching up on what each of us had been up to, and I brought up my culinary conundrum of the day.
"Study abroad problems, amiright?" Victoria began. "Okay, but really... ummm have you tried that one place on the Cours Mirabeau, Les Deux Frères? Is that what it's called? Is that a thing?"
"I'm pretty sure that's a thing," Savannah chimed in.
"Thanks, pal!" Victoria chimed right back.
"Any time, bud!" Savannah continued. "Anyhow, what kind of fries are you looking for? I mean different places have good fries, but just different types."
"French ones," I specified. "The frenchest ones I can get."
Savannah rolled her eyes and moved on to more productive topics, and we continued much in the same fashion until the conversation fell into a lull and we took back to studying, breaking up bouts of productivity with lighthearted conversation each time that our collective attention span waned too much. After a few hours of this, we had taken in more sun than actual studying, so we parted ways and headed in the directions of our respective apartments.
On my way back, I took a stroll along the Cours Mirabeau, considering each overpriced restaurant that I passed for its fry potential, but remained dissatisfied with the cost-benefit analysis as I ran it through my head. Feeling a bit let down by the picturesque street, I adjourned to my apartment.
Moments after I entered the building, my phone began to ring. I looked at the screen before picking up, and it read "Unknown Caller," so of course I knew who it was before I hit the green "accept call" button.
"Hey Maddie" It was none other than the man of three names, Brandon/Victor/Paolo, otherwise known as BVP. "Do you guys have any dinner plans?" We did not. "Then could I come over tonight and make something for dinner?" Indeed he could.
He arrived within minutes with a baguette in hand. It was still a while before the time to start cooking, so we made a quick Monoprix run to spend altogether too much money on the cheapest ingredients available (comme d'hab), and I once more took the opportunity to seek advice about how and where to find fries of the proper level of frenchness. He couldn't think of a solution to the perplexity, but he did sing me a pretty song while charmingly throwing my name into the lyrics, which at least made me feel a bit better for the moment.
Once we returned to the apartment, he took to playing Battle Tetris on Alyssa's laptop while I tried doing some internet research on where to find the best fries in Aix. As we we sitting, we suddenly heard the door opening and felt a cool zephyr blow through the apartment, and we knew. The bros were coming.
Sure enough, our neighbors Sam and Sean, along with Other Sam (a.k.a. Joe) and a marigold clad Toler, appeared in search of Cody.
"Dude, is Cody around?" Sean asked.
"Not that I know of," I said, only to be proven wrong as my aforementioned roommate suddenly emerged from his room that I had previously presumed to be vacant.
"Hey, we're about to head over to Pascal's for dinner," Sam said to Cody. "Come on."
"Hold on, I'm gonna grab some shoes," Cody responded. "What have you guys been up to?"
"Gossip Girl, bro."
They soon filed out the door, and after a moment Cody dashed back in for a moment to grab his lighter, and was gone once more. I returned to furiously looking for really french-sounding restaurants in the area, and heard the door open again. I thought it odd that Cody should forget something twice rather than his standard single return before making it out the door, but then I looked up and saw that instead it was Alyssa returning from the APA office with the remnants of a crepe in hand and the entirety of a Mickey coming in behind her.
"What's up?" my blondest roommate inquired.
"I need to find some really French fries before I go, and there's almost no time left! What do I do?"
"Maddie, breathe. You've had moules frites before. You've also had the fries from Nabab and the falafel place. Point is, you've already got french fries covered."
I paused for a second. "...Oh." I thought it through, and as usual, she was right. I guess that as long as I'm having french fries in France, they're significantly frencher than anywhere else in the world, so I'd already had the frenchest fries on earth. As I took this unnecessarily long moment of reflection, Alyssa and Mickey took to an even more drawn out game of sloth tag. It was a glorious moment in the apartment, made even better once BVP got to work on dinner and the place was filled with the scent of delicious things.
With my renewed peace of mind, I was able to enjoy a delicious meal of BVP's carbonara, because italian food definitely made the most sense to complete my french experiences, and at the end of the night, I was able to go to sleep and peacefully dream of the Frenchest Fry.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Graduation Day: 4 mai, 2013
Today is graduation day. It's a day when people get dressed up in spiffy caps and gowns, surrounded with family and other various loved ones, celebrating everything that they've accomplished in the past few years. It's the day that people either walk up on a stage and shake some hands or snap some pictures of those that they're proud of doing the same. Save for being surrounded by loved ones (because seriously, the people that I know here are pretty awesome), I'm not doing any of that stuff. I'm slightly too in Europe and stuff to do that stuff, so I'm going to blog stuff instead.
My graduating class at Indiana University is celebrating in caps and gowns today, and although I don't get to be there for that, I'm very much okay with missing out on it. My semester doesn't actually end for another two weeks anyway (silly France), so I have yet to complete what my peers have done, making it feel a bit imaginary for me. What I'm really missing out on this weekend is the celebration of someone else that has done so much more than me.
My older brother Cole is graduating from Auburn University tomorrow, and I dearly wish that I could have been there to snap pictures of him in his cap and gown, but now I have to find another way to show how proud I am of my big bro.
Tomorrow, Cole celebrates something real; he has finished his four collegiate years, during which he not only studied and took exams, but also grew into somebody that I'm even prouder to call my brother than before. My friends can attest to how much I brag about my big bros, and now anyone reading this gets a good taste of that.
Cole has always been the funniest Stuart, but as he has grown into who he is and matured during college, his humor has developed in complement. Part of this is due to the amount of knowledge that he's accumulated in these four years, which is to be expected during college, seeing as he was and English major and thus learned more words and how to use them in increasingly clever ways, but due to his unrelenting passion about what interests him, he also researches whatever band or idea piques his interest. He uses some of this researched information to make his famously clever and hilarious quips, but also applies it wherever applicable in his life.
Anybody that has ever attempted to argue with this guy certainly knows that going against him tends to be a losing battle. At first, it can take a while to figure out why he's so hard to beat -- is it because he stops blinking and intimidates you with the glaring intensity of those ambiguously blue/green eyes? Does he have mind control powers that make you suddenly capable of only producing sub-par arguments? Honestly though, he's just so knowledgeable that he can support pretty much any argument with the facts that he can come up with off the top of his head, and when combined with his quick wit, it makes for a lethal combination.
These argumentative tactics could easily make a person intimidating to encounter, but Cole is also generous with what he knows. Especially when he knows that I'm curious about something, he makes the effort to share new information, teaching me things that I never would have known without my brother. How much do you know about the Wu-Tang Clan? Had it not been for Cole, I would know nothing about them, likely never developing an appreciation for rap music, but he broadened my understanding of the world (or at least of the musical world) and taught me some things that I'm honestly pretty proud of knowing. He also taught me everything I know about basketball, so I can understand what I'm seeing when I watch Bulls games on TV. He makes me smarter and feel cooler than I could be without him.
If I hadn't taken an entire class on the Beatles, Cole, you would undoubtedly smoke me at Beatles Trivial Pursuit.
One thing that I personally keep learning more and more, especially since Cole and I started college, is just how supportive and wonderful of a brother he is. He was my first friend. He has always kept and eye out for me, and was definitely not shy about doing so whenever boys are involved in my life, but it took me until college to really start noticing what he does for me. He teaches me things and shows me cool music. When we're in different states or countries, he finds ways to give something as short and simple as a text message the heartfelt warmth of a hug. He makes time to hang out with his little sister even though he has a lot of well-earned friends that he needs to make time for when we're home. He sticks up for me when he notices that I'm being picked on and don't have the presence of mind to defend myself, and I can never put into words how much that means to me.
All in all, Cole has been an amazing brother and person in general, and this man that I look up to so much absolutely deserves to be celebrated today. I love you, I look up to you, and I'm proud of you. Congratulations, big bro.
My graduating class at Indiana University is celebrating in caps and gowns today, and although I don't get to be there for that, I'm very much okay with missing out on it. My semester doesn't actually end for another two weeks anyway (silly France), so I have yet to complete what my peers have done, making it feel a bit imaginary for me. What I'm really missing out on this weekend is the celebration of someone else that has done so much more than me.
My older brother Cole is graduating from Auburn University tomorrow, and I dearly wish that I could have been there to snap pictures of him in his cap and gown, but now I have to find another way to show how proud I am of my big bro.
Tomorrow, Cole celebrates something real; he has finished his four collegiate years, during which he not only studied and took exams, but also grew into somebody that I'm even prouder to call my brother than before. My friends can attest to how much I brag about my big bros, and now anyone reading this gets a good taste of that.
Cole has always been the funniest Stuart, but as he has grown into who he is and matured during college, his humor has developed in complement. Part of this is due to the amount of knowledge that he's accumulated in these four years, which is to be expected during college, seeing as he was and English major and thus learned more words and how to use them in increasingly clever ways, but due to his unrelenting passion about what interests him, he also researches whatever band or idea piques his interest. He uses some of this researched information to make his famously clever and hilarious quips, but also applies it wherever applicable in his life.
Anybody that has ever attempted to argue with this guy certainly knows that going against him tends to be a losing battle. At first, it can take a while to figure out why he's so hard to beat -- is it because he stops blinking and intimidates you with the glaring intensity of those ambiguously blue/green eyes? Does he have mind control powers that make you suddenly capable of only producing sub-par arguments? Honestly though, he's just so knowledgeable that he can support pretty much any argument with the facts that he can come up with off the top of his head, and when combined with his quick wit, it makes for a lethal combination.
These argumentative tactics could easily make a person intimidating to encounter, but Cole is also generous with what he knows. Especially when he knows that I'm curious about something, he makes the effort to share new information, teaching me things that I never would have known without my brother. How much do you know about the Wu-Tang Clan? Had it not been for Cole, I would know nothing about them, likely never developing an appreciation for rap music, but he broadened my understanding of the world (or at least of the musical world) and taught me some things that I'm honestly pretty proud of knowing. He also taught me everything I know about basketball, so I can understand what I'm seeing when I watch Bulls games on TV. He makes me smarter and feel cooler than I could be without him.
If I hadn't taken an entire class on the Beatles, Cole, you would undoubtedly smoke me at Beatles Trivial Pursuit.
One thing that I personally keep learning more and more, especially since Cole and I started college, is just how supportive and wonderful of a brother he is. He was my first friend. He has always kept and eye out for me, and was definitely not shy about doing so whenever boys are involved in my life, but it took me until college to really start noticing what he does for me. He teaches me things and shows me cool music. When we're in different states or countries, he finds ways to give something as short and simple as a text message the heartfelt warmth of a hug. He makes time to hang out with his little sister even though he has a lot of well-earned friends that he needs to make time for when we're home. He sticks up for me when he notices that I'm being picked on and don't have the presence of mind to defend myself, and I can never put into words how much that means to me.
All in all, Cole has been an amazing brother and person in general, and this man that I look up to so much absolutely deserves to be celebrated today. I love you, I look up to you, and I'm proud of you. Congratulations, big bro.
Thursday, May 2, 2013
The Homeland: 2 Mai, 2013
MASSIVELY LONG POST ALERT
Spring break 2013 was the approximate week and a half between the end of classes and the beginning of finals that sent the APA participants scattered throughout Europe, seeking out new adventures, scenic spots, and general fun. For me, this break signified the opportunity to get in touch with some of my roots and visit the place that I've jokingly referred to as "The Homeland" for a number of years now: Ireland.
As my roommates were preparing for their departure to Greece, I packed up my backpack as space efficiently as possible (because suitcases are for wimps) for my tour through Ireland, taking me through Dublin, Cork, Galway, and Limerick. Although traveling to different countries is pretty much business as usual for the group at this point, this trip was going to be a little bit different from the rest for one key reason: I was to travel alone for the first time. Granted, I was to meet up with the man of many names, Brandon Victor Paolo (BVP) and two of his friends the night that we all got to Dublin, but on every flight that I had taken throughout my life I'd had at least one other friend with me to help navigate through the airport and to whatever hostel was our destination. This time, that was not the case.
On Tuesday morning I got up early (at least by a 20-year-old's standards), grabbed some croissants for the road, and made my way to the bus station, where I proceeded to wait in a state of severe paranoia that I had misread the bus schedule and that I was at the wrong stop, I'd already missed my bus, or that this bus wasn't going to take me to the airport at all. Eventually, though, the bus rolled up to take me to the Nice airport.
Things rolled pretty smoothly from there as I went through security, flew to Ireland, and took a bus that delivered me into the heart of Dublin city. Having eaten only a couple of croissants throughout the day, at this point in the evening I was definitely ready to try some Irish food. I walked around for a good minute or two until I found a promising pub, where I ordered myself some fish and chips with a Dublin staple, a Guinness. There was only one unforeseen problem.
I had been excited to go to an English speaking country for the first time since New Year's, expecting that the common language would make it easier to get by than in the other countries that I've been to where they speak various other languages. As I discovered at this pub, though, I don't understand thick brogues. As opposed to when I was in Italy, where I could understand at least part of whatever I heard in Italian, I didn't catch a single word of what this pub worker dude was saying to me.
Since I had already conversed with Irish people in the US and France, I figured that I understood the accent pretty well, but I had neglected to take varied accents from different parts of the country into account. I'm not sure what city this chap was from, but I didn't catch anywhere near as much of what he was saying as when I spoke to pretty much anybody else in the country. I looked like an idiot for a moment while somebody with a gentler accent had to translate his English into Also English for me.
Observations from during that meal: fish and chips are nummy, there is a condiment called "brown sauce" in existence, and pints are ENORMOUS.
After my first Irish meal, I made my way through what had turned into a significantly rainier Dublin to my hostel. While waiting for BVP and his friends whose names I had not yet committed to memory to show up, I killed some time by partaking in the hostel's wine and cheese portion of the night, making the acquaintance of a Canadian chick who had been spending the past several months with family in Sweden (Canadian count: 1), which turned into a conversation about American and Canadian sports, attracting the attention of the remaining American and Canadians in the room (Canadian count: 3). I kind of knew what I was talking about for most of the conversation. I eventually gave up and turned in for the night, retiring to the hostel room where my travel buddies were still MIA.
At approximately 1:30am, their arrival was glorious. It consisted mostly of them shuffling around to get settled in for the night, and me mumbling with my eyes closed.
In the morning, more thorough introductions of Nathan and Liz were issued, and so our Irish adventures together began. With only one full day in Dublin, we made the most of our time by getting around on the hop-on hop-off bus tour of the city, hearing witty quips from different guides and taking in as much scenery and information as we could. Our time on these buses turned out to be preferable to off, because, as it turns out, it rains a lot in the British Isles. Who knew, right?
We quickly discovered that Ireland has two weather modes:
1) Sunny, warm, and beautiful
2) Freezing cold rain and wind
It alternates between these two modes numerous times throughout the day. This is not pleasant for somebody that's been spoiled by the consistently warm and sunny weather of southern France. It's not pleasant at all.
After our daytime sightseeing, the group quickly established an evening ritual of stopping by a local pub for a pint and some euchre. Prior to this trip, I was about as knowledgeable as the average irishman of the game of euchre -- that's to say not at all. Regardless, my comrades were patient with me as they showed me the ropes of the card game, and I was soon addicted. In fact, I'm currently experiencing a case of the shakes from withdrawal. I'll be checking into the rehab clinic tomorrow.
Most of our transportation throughout the week-long trip, aside from walking, was by bus, whether taking us on a tour through a city or taking us on a three-hour ride to our next destination city. In contrast to car and bus rides in the midwest of the US, I did not see a single ear of corn. Instead, I got great views of green fields of grass, rolling hills, short stone walls reminiscent of The Quiet Man, and tons of sheep. My first major dose of this came as we headed over to Cork city.
Cork has a much smaller town feel to it than Dublin, which I really liked, and houses the greatest pub to ever exist, the Welcome Inn. As we went on a desperate search for food one night, looking for someplace that was still serving food by 7pm (a rarity that shows a stark contrast to France, where most restaurants start serving dinner at 7:30 or 8pm instead of finishing well before then), we stopped by this little pub asking whether or not they still had food. Alas, they didn't, but the bartender standing outside made the friendly gesture of pointing us in the right direction to the best of his ability. We ended up having a humble meal at Subway because it was the only place that was still open, then decided that this little pub had earned the honor of being our pint destination for the evening. As we returned to the Welcome Inn, we saw two doors right next to each other, both supposedly leading in, so Liz took the role of our fearless leader by walking into the door on the left.
As it turns out, the door on the left leads behind the pub counter. Much to the bartender's amusement, we panicked, rushed back out, and made our way in the proper door. At this point, though, the bartender invited our fearless leader back behind the counter, instructing her to pour our pints.
"Look here, we've got a new bar maid!"
The bar full of old irishmen was wildly amused by the scene, and the bartender seemed to get quite a kick out of it as well. As we were all paying, Liz was getting ready to pull out a €5 note, but the bartender stopped her, telling her that her pint was on the house.
And so the excitement in the pub settled down for the most part as we sat down with our pints and began to play some euchre. This strange and foreign game caught the intrigue of one particularly drunk irishman, who eventually had us take a break from the game as he taught us some card tricks. It's lucky that these tricks by "Drunk Irish Grandpa," as I like to call him, were explained most thoroughly in a visual manner, because I couldn't understand a darned word he said in that slurred brogue of his. When continuing conversation with the man became too difficult and awkward, we put an effective end to the convo by switching to French for a little while, then called it a night. And so concluded our experience at the greatest pub ever.
Fast forward to the morning, and it was time to head to the Blarney Castle! The castle itself was relatively small, but the grounds were enormous, beautiful, and parts of it were just straight-up cool.
Of course, we made the obligatory stop to kiss the Blarney Stone at the top of the castle, which I informed the group as we entered the grounds was the #1 thing from the entire trip that I needed a picture with. We made our way up the narrowest possible spiral staircase, clinging for dear life to the rope in the middle due to the lack of any handrail, and found ourselves in the presence of a wholly underwhelming and unspecial-looking stone, but that was it. I took pictures for the group as Liz, BVP, and Nathan took their turns kissing the stone, and my turn finally came, so I handed my camera to BVP so he could get a photo of the event, sat down, grabbed the rails, and literally bent over backwards to reach and kiss the stone.
As I got back up, feeling victorious, I went to retrieve my camera from BVP, who had a slightly guilty and vaguely bewildered look on his face.
"I just got so distracted that I forgot to take the picture," he said.
Ha ha, very funny. I took my camera back to look through the pictures to prove that he was just lying to screw with me.
Nope. He really didn't take a picture. And neither did anybody else in the group. All that was left was the overpriced souvenir photo taken by the Blarney Castle employees, which BVP offered to pay for. He didn't pay for it, though (What's up with that, BVP? I say you owe me a pint, at least).
After that, we made our way around the grounds, starting with the gardens. At this castle, there were two different kinds of gardens: Irish and poison. Yes, poison. They grow various toxic and mind-altering plants, including poison ivy, yew, and marijuana. That was the first time I've seen a pot plant in person. The Irish garden was significantly less interesting, filled with flowering plants that are out of season at the moment, so we didn't get to see a single one of the flowers.
Our next stop was Galway city, the last city that we would visit together. With a rather condensed city center, we were able to make our way around on foot, getting to the city museum, cathedral, river walk, and a local street market. My favorite part of the city, though, was probably the street performers. Especially along the main shop street in the city, there were musical performers abound, doing anything from electric guitar and vocals to traditional harp and accordion.
After our relatively brief time in Galway, the time had come to part ways, and so I was on my own for the remainder of the trip.
I started my solo trip by taking yet another bus your, this time taking me through Connemara and Cong villages, one containing a famous abbey, and the other housing the cottage from the movie The Quiet Man. I was super pumped about the latter. The bus driver was a pleasant old irishman who made witty and lighthearted quips along the journey, also teaching us a lot of interesting tidbits about the sites that we went by on the 7½ hour tour.
The Quiet Man house was the highlight of the journey for me; it still had those iconic green doors from the film (pronounced "fillum" by many Irish) and faced a quiet stream that, perfectly enough, carried a swan along its waters, being the first swan I can recall ever having seen. Ireland must have planned that out for me. They knew I was coming, so they were like, "Hey, let's just place a perfectly white swan in this pleasant stream. Then let's hide a whole bunch more in Limerick for her."
And yeah, I ended up seeing two more families of swans when I was in Limerick, my destination immediately after the Cong and Connemara tour.
During my full day in Limerick, I had planned on walking through the medieval quarter and spending most of the day at King John's castle and the city museum. As it turned out, though, those main two attractions were closed for remodeling until June, so I found myself with a lot more time to kill than I had originally anticipated. I wandered around the quarter for a bit, feeling a little let down by the city, then noticed the swans. There had to have been a good 30 swans there, split between two separate groups that were about 15 meters apart from one another, and it was certainly the most swans that I had seen in my life. I picnicked with the swans, enjoying the sun and their company, and wrote a limerick about Limerick for one of my brothers that requested one once upon a time.
I passed my afternoon at the thoroughly creepy Hunt Museum, got some dinner, and then realized that there's not much to do in Ireland outside of pubs after 7pm unless you're with friends. It didn't make for a very interesting evening, but at least I got some reading in.
Next day: back to Cork to fly back to France! But I have bad aim, so I wound up in Nice for the night instead of Aix. I was too tired of traveling to really do any more sightseeing, so I immediately retired to my hostel, where I socialized a bit with some of the others that were there for the night (Canadian count: somewhere around 15), and headed to bed. The next morning, I had breakfast with some Americans from the hostel, then headed to the train station to finally get back home, hoping to avoid any more human interaction than absolutely necessary, and consequently got asked out multiple times by a creepy middle-aged frenchman, asked for a meal by a random woman, and asked if I was Italian or Irish by another frenchman. Eventually, though, I made it to the train, where nobody else bothered me, and got home in time to take a long relaxing shower and a good nap. I had survived my senior year's spring break.
Spring break 2013 was the approximate week and a half between the end of classes and the beginning of finals that sent the APA participants scattered throughout Europe, seeking out new adventures, scenic spots, and general fun. For me, this break signified the opportunity to get in touch with some of my roots and visit the place that I've jokingly referred to as "The Homeland" for a number of years now: Ireland.
As my roommates were preparing for their departure to Greece, I packed up my backpack as space efficiently as possible (because suitcases are for wimps) for my tour through Ireland, taking me through Dublin, Cork, Galway, and Limerick. Although traveling to different countries is pretty much business as usual for the group at this point, this trip was going to be a little bit different from the rest for one key reason: I was to travel alone for the first time. Granted, I was to meet up with the man of many names, Brandon Victor Paolo (BVP) and two of his friends the night that we all got to Dublin, but on every flight that I had taken throughout my life I'd had at least one other friend with me to help navigate through the airport and to whatever hostel was our destination. This time, that was not the case.
On Tuesday morning I got up early (at least by a 20-year-old's standards), grabbed some croissants for the road, and made my way to the bus station, where I proceeded to wait in a state of severe paranoia that I had misread the bus schedule and that I was at the wrong stop, I'd already missed my bus, or that this bus wasn't going to take me to the airport at all. Eventually, though, the bus rolled up to take me to the Nice airport.
Things rolled pretty smoothly from there as I went through security, flew to Ireland, and took a bus that delivered me into the heart of Dublin city. Having eaten only a couple of croissants throughout the day, at this point in the evening I was definitely ready to try some Irish food. I walked around for a good minute or two until I found a promising pub, where I ordered myself some fish and chips with a Dublin staple, a Guinness. There was only one unforeseen problem.
I had been excited to go to an English speaking country for the first time since New Year's, expecting that the common language would make it easier to get by than in the other countries that I've been to where they speak various other languages. As I discovered at this pub, though, I don't understand thick brogues. As opposed to when I was in Italy, where I could understand at least part of whatever I heard in Italian, I didn't catch a single word of what this pub worker dude was saying to me.
Since I had already conversed with Irish people in the US and France, I figured that I understood the accent pretty well, but I had neglected to take varied accents from different parts of the country into account. I'm not sure what city this chap was from, but I didn't catch anywhere near as much of what he was saying as when I spoke to pretty much anybody else in the country. I looked like an idiot for a moment while somebody with a gentler accent had to translate his English into Also English for me.
Observations from during that meal: fish and chips are nummy, there is a condiment called "brown sauce" in existence, and pints are ENORMOUS.
After my first Irish meal, I made my way through what had turned into a significantly rainier Dublin to my hostel. While waiting for BVP and his friends whose names I had not yet committed to memory to show up, I killed some time by partaking in the hostel's wine and cheese portion of the night, making the acquaintance of a Canadian chick who had been spending the past several months with family in Sweden (Canadian count: 1), which turned into a conversation about American and Canadian sports, attracting the attention of the remaining American and Canadians in the room (Canadian count: 3). I kind of knew what I was talking about for most of the conversation. I eventually gave up and turned in for the night, retiring to the hostel room where my travel buddies were still MIA.
At approximately 1:30am, their arrival was glorious. It consisted mostly of them shuffling around to get settled in for the night, and me mumbling with my eyes closed.
In the morning, more thorough introductions of Nathan and Liz were issued, and so our Irish adventures together began. With only one full day in Dublin, we made the most of our time by getting around on the hop-on hop-off bus tour of the city, hearing witty quips from different guides and taking in as much scenery and information as we could. Our time on these buses turned out to be preferable to off, because, as it turns out, it rains a lot in the British Isles. Who knew, right?
We quickly discovered that Ireland has two weather modes:
1) Sunny, warm, and beautiful
2) Freezing cold rain and wind
It alternates between these two modes numerous times throughout the day. This is not pleasant for somebody that's been spoiled by the consistently warm and sunny weather of southern France. It's not pleasant at all.
After our daytime sightseeing, the group quickly established an evening ritual of stopping by a local pub for a pint and some euchre. Prior to this trip, I was about as knowledgeable as the average irishman of the game of euchre -- that's to say not at all. Regardless, my comrades were patient with me as they showed me the ropes of the card game, and I was soon addicted. In fact, I'm currently experiencing a case of the shakes from withdrawal. I'll be checking into the rehab clinic tomorrow.
Most of our transportation throughout the week-long trip, aside from walking, was by bus, whether taking us on a tour through a city or taking us on a three-hour ride to our next destination city. In contrast to car and bus rides in the midwest of the US, I did not see a single ear of corn. Instead, I got great views of green fields of grass, rolling hills, short stone walls reminiscent of The Quiet Man, and tons of sheep. My first major dose of this came as we headed over to Cork city.
Cork has a much smaller town feel to it than Dublin, which I really liked, and houses the greatest pub to ever exist, the Welcome Inn. As we went on a desperate search for food one night, looking for someplace that was still serving food by 7pm (a rarity that shows a stark contrast to France, where most restaurants start serving dinner at 7:30 or 8pm instead of finishing well before then), we stopped by this little pub asking whether or not they still had food. Alas, they didn't, but the bartender standing outside made the friendly gesture of pointing us in the right direction to the best of his ability. We ended up having a humble meal at Subway because it was the only place that was still open, then decided that this little pub had earned the honor of being our pint destination for the evening. As we returned to the Welcome Inn, we saw two doors right next to each other, both supposedly leading in, so Liz took the role of our fearless leader by walking into the door on the left.
As it turns out, the door on the left leads behind the pub counter. Much to the bartender's amusement, we panicked, rushed back out, and made our way in the proper door. At this point, though, the bartender invited our fearless leader back behind the counter, instructing her to pour our pints.
"Look here, we've got a new bar maid!"
The bar full of old irishmen was wildly amused by the scene, and the bartender seemed to get quite a kick out of it as well. As we were all paying, Liz was getting ready to pull out a €5 note, but the bartender stopped her, telling her that her pint was on the house.
And so the excitement in the pub settled down for the most part as we sat down with our pints and began to play some euchre. This strange and foreign game caught the intrigue of one particularly drunk irishman, who eventually had us take a break from the game as he taught us some card tricks. It's lucky that these tricks by "Drunk Irish Grandpa," as I like to call him, were explained most thoroughly in a visual manner, because I couldn't understand a darned word he said in that slurred brogue of his. When continuing conversation with the man became too difficult and awkward, we put an effective end to the convo by switching to French for a little while, then called it a night. And so concluded our experience at the greatest pub ever.
Fast forward to the morning, and it was time to head to the Blarney Castle! The castle itself was relatively small, but the grounds were enormous, beautiful, and parts of it were just straight-up cool.
Of course, we made the obligatory stop to kiss the Blarney Stone at the top of the castle, which I informed the group as we entered the grounds was the #1 thing from the entire trip that I needed a picture with. We made our way up the narrowest possible spiral staircase, clinging for dear life to the rope in the middle due to the lack of any handrail, and found ourselves in the presence of a wholly underwhelming and unspecial-looking stone, but that was it. I took pictures for the group as Liz, BVP, and Nathan took their turns kissing the stone, and my turn finally came, so I handed my camera to BVP so he could get a photo of the event, sat down, grabbed the rails, and literally bent over backwards to reach and kiss the stone.
As I got back up, feeling victorious, I went to retrieve my camera from BVP, who had a slightly guilty and vaguely bewildered look on his face.
"I just got so distracted that I forgot to take the picture," he said.
Ha ha, very funny. I took my camera back to look through the pictures to prove that he was just lying to screw with me.
Nope. He really didn't take a picture. And neither did anybody else in the group. All that was left was the overpriced souvenir photo taken by the Blarney Castle employees, which BVP offered to pay for. He didn't pay for it, though (What's up with that, BVP? I say you owe me a pint, at least).
After that, we made our way around the grounds, starting with the gardens. At this castle, there were two different kinds of gardens: Irish and poison. Yes, poison. They grow various toxic and mind-altering plants, including poison ivy, yew, and marijuana. That was the first time I've seen a pot plant in person. The Irish garden was significantly less interesting, filled with flowering plants that are out of season at the moment, so we didn't get to see a single one of the flowers.
Our next stop was Galway city, the last city that we would visit together. With a rather condensed city center, we were able to make our way around on foot, getting to the city museum, cathedral, river walk, and a local street market. My favorite part of the city, though, was probably the street performers. Especially along the main shop street in the city, there were musical performers abound, doing anything from electric guitar and vocals to traditional harp and accordion.
After our relatively brief time in Galway, the time had come to part ways, and so I was on my own for the remainder of the trip.
I started my solo trip by taking yet another bus your, this time taking me through Connemara and Cong villages, one containing a famous abbey, and the other housing the cottage from the movie The Quiet Man. I was super pumped about the latter. The bus driver was a pleasant old irishman who made witty and lighthearted quips along the journey, also teaching us a lot of interesting tidbits about the sites that we went by on the 7½ hour tour.
The Quiet Man house was the highlight of the journey for me; it still had those iconic green doors from the film (pronounced "fillum" by many Irish) and faced a quiet stream that, perfectly enough, carried a swan along its waters, being the first swan I can recall ever having seen. Ireland must have planned that out for me. They knew I was coming, so they were like, "Hey, let's just place a perfectly white swan in this pleasant stream. Then let's hide a whole bunch more in Limerick for her."
And yeah, I ended up seeing two more families of swans when I was in Limerick, my destination immediately after the Cong and Connemara tour.
During my full day in Limerick, I had planned on walking through the medieval quarter and spending most of the day at King John's castle and the city museum. As it turned out, though, those main two attractions were closed for remodeling until June, so I found myself with a lot more time to kill than I had originally anticipated. I wandered around the quarter for a bit, feeling a little let down by the city, then noticed the swans. There had to have been a good 30 swans there, split between two separate groups that were about 15 meters apart from one another, and it was certainly the most swans that I had seen in my life. I picnicked with the swans, enjoying the sun and their company, and wrote a limerick about Limerick for one of my brothers that requested one once upon a time.
I passed my afternoon at the thoroughly creepy Hunt Museum, got some dinner, and then realized that there's not much to do in Ireland outside of pubs after 7pm unless you're with friends. It didn't make for a very interesting evening, but at least I got some reading in.
Next day: back to Cork to fly back to France! But I have bad aim, so I wound up in Nice for the night instead of Aix. I was too tired of traveling to really do any more sightseeing, so I immediately retired to my hostel, where I socialized a bit with some of the others that were there for the night (Canadian count: somewhere around 15), and headed to bed. The next morning, I had breakfast with some Americans from the hostel, then headed to the train station to finally get back home, hoping to avoid any more human interaction than absolutely necessary, and consequently got asked out multiple times by a creepy middle-aged frenchman, asked for a meal by a random woman, and asked if I was Italian or Irish by another frenchman. Eventually, though, I made it to the train, where nobody else bothered me, and got home in time to take a long relaxing shower and a good nap. I had survived my senior year's spring break.
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